


Sneaking Happiness

by hrhrionastar, meridian_rose (meridianrose)



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Episode: s01e22 Reckoning, F/M, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-18
Updated: 2011-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/pseuds/hrhrionastar, https://archiveofourown.org/users/meridianrose/pseuds/meridian_rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.”</i><br/>Set during the 'Reckoning' AU. When young Nicholas goes missing one afternoon, Kahlan is not only surprised by how concerned Darken is for his son, but is forced to consider some uncomfortable truths about her own feelings towards both Nicholas and Darken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sneaking Happiness

_“Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.”_

Nicholas was not in the nursery.

Darken even looked in the wardrobe, but the only thing lurking behind the elaborately embroidered play clothes and velvet robes for state occasions was smooth, dark wood. (Darken’s nurse had once told him of a wardrobe that transported naughty children to a world without summer. After a particularly bad week with his father, he’d tried desperately to find it, reasoning that perpetual winter far away from his own home might have certain advantages, but had been unsuccessful.)

"Nicholas?" Darken called again. The boy was supposed to be here. He crouched down and peered under the bed, hoping Nicholas was just hiding out under there to tease him. All he saw there was sufficient dust to make him consider killing a maid to remind the rest what he paid them for. Not that Kahlan would allow it; punishments had grown subtler since she had become his wife, much to the disgust of the Mord'Sith.

He told himself there was nothing to worry about. Obviously, Nicholas, his playmate, Ethan, and his nurse, Becca, were just late returning from fencing practice. At Nicholas’s age, Darken’s father had made him practice with real weapons and real soldiers, but he was not his father. Nicholas had a sparring partner his own age, and they used wooden swords so that no one would get hurt.

Nonetheless, Darken was uneasy. It was time for the afternoon petitions and Nicholas knew that; he should have been back here. Darken had been looking forward to the petitions more than usual since Kahlan had agreed to attend today. She refused to do so all the time, arguing that she was merely a figurehead, her presence something to impress his loyal subjects.

He’d tried to tell her the Queen was welcome to assist him in meting out judgments— even Nicholas, in the heir’s throne, was permitted to speak periodically, although his presence was largely so that he might learn how things were done in D’Hara—but Kahlan could be remarkably stubborn. When he’d asked her to be his wife in every way, he’d meant more than her prompt presentation of an heir…but it was useless to dwell on that.

He strode out in the corridor, telling himself that Nicholas was merely in no hurry to return to the stifling Palace on a sunny day like this.

Darken was not worried.

He caught sight of Kahlan and Becca outside Kahlan’s spacious, elegant, and private rooms. As always, Kahlan did justice to her setting; hair elaborately curled, gown neatly accentuating her curves, and expression coolly imperious. She was every inch the Queen.

But Darken had eyes only for Becca, near tears and accompanied by neither Nicholas nor Ethan.

"My Lady," she was saying unevenly, "I don’t know how he got away from me, I swear—one minute I was walking them both back to the nursery, the next—"

"Nicholas is missing?" Darken’s voice was like a whip. Becca flinched. "How did you let this happen?"

"Please, my Lord!" Becca threw herself at his feet. "I did everything I could—you have to believe me, I would never let harm come to Master Nicholas!"

Darken’s fingers itched for his dagger, but before he could strike out at his son’s nurse in his fear and panic, Kahlan laid a gentle hand on his arm.

"I’m sure they’re just playing, my Lord," she said composedly. "They’re only children."

Darken took a breath, forcing himself to relax. Kahlan was probably right. She usually was, much to his combined annoyance and admiration.

He should be proud of Nicholas’s ingenuity in escaping from his nurse. Becca might have failed him, but Nicholas was rather attached to her—he would be disappointed to find a new nurse, if— _when_ —he returned.

"Come," he said, hooking Kahlan’s arm through his and pulling her along toward the courtyard. Becca followed without being told, her expression one of disbelieving relief.

"What is your hurry?" Kahlan asked. "Can’t you let him be a child for once? When I was a girl, Dennee and I used to sneak away from the Sisters of the Light and play for hours outside in the wildflowers—"

Ordinarily, Darken would’ve exulted at this sign of trust—Kahlan knew that everything, even a childhood memory as far back as that one, could be used in Darken’s campaign to win her heart.

But fear for Nicholas made him harsh. "This isn’t Thandor, Kahlan. It’s not safe for my heir to be wandering outside the Palace alone. Do you know how many of my ‘loyal subjects’ would jump at the chance to kill our son?"

Kahlan gasped, for the first time looking worried. "Surely the D’Harans wouldn’t murder your heir!" she protested.

"Of course they would," Darken continued relentlessly. "If I can’t protect him, I’ll be seen as weak. They hope to destabilize my rule. At the right moment, no doubt, there will be a rebellion in some far off portion of my Empire, and in the resulting chaos my enemies will attempt to seize power. No Rahl is too young to be a threat."

Kahlan digested this. She looked, when Darken glanced at her, as though she wasn’t finding the hard facts of court life to her taste.

They were outside and nearly to the stables, and Darken had accosted young Mistress—Sacharissa, that was it—and given orders for search parties to be formed at once, before Kahlan spoke again.

"I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be rid of such a charming system," she said sardonically, "in which your own countrymen are more likely to try to kill you than the foreigners you ruthlessly oppress, and our son can’t spend an afternoon playing outside your Palace walls without taking his life into his hands. Can it be that you don’t understand what the word ‘peace’ means?"

One raised eyebrow had sent the groom scurrying to saddle Darken’s bay warhorse, named Cawfry after a childhood hero (Cawfry the Savior of the Southern Isles), and a handsome black mare for Kahlan. Becca stood wringing her hands in the corner, and Darken remembered she was terrified of horses.

But they had to find Nicholas quickly. He was alone save for little Ethan, most likely climbing trees in the wood behind the Palace or wandering about the capitol city—he wouldn’t have been so foolish as to try and swim the moat; even Rahl courage, which occasionally bordered on foolhardiness, had limits. Neither scenario appealed to Darken. Anything could happen.

As Darken lifted Kahlan into the saddle, he said shortly, "Even had your Richard been less incompetent and found his mark, neither of you would have been rid of the system. It never changes. The system changes you."

Kahlan wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Darken mounted Cawfry, irritated with himself for mentioning Richard, and led the way out of the imposing Palace gates, praying they weren’t too late.

* * *

Kahlan’s thoughts were in turmoil. Of course she wanted Nicholas to be safe, but she had had to admit, however reluctantly, that her outrage that Darken’s subjects could contemplate Nicholas's murder was a slight overreaction. He was a male Confessor—were they in the Midlands, it would be Kahlan’s people trying to get the prince alone in some abandoned spot.

Kahlan’s initial horror that she had been forced to let him live had given way to somewhat ashamed love, and a certain relief. Nicholas would return Richard to her—she had borne him only for that sacrifice—but had things been otherwise, he could not have been allowed to survive infancy.

It was better this way.

They didn't have to search for long. Just a mile or so into the woods, Nicholas was loudly making proclamations to the rows of pine cone soldiers he'd carefully lined up. Even in his childhood games, Nicholas was always the king or the hero.

Kahlan was about to warn Darken not to chastise their son too harshly, but she saw, not anger on her husband's face, but relief. Nicholas saw his parents approach and scowled.

"Nicholas," she called, before Darken could speak. "You are supposed to be at the afternoon petitions with us."

Nicholas protested loudly that he was in the middle of a game, and that Cawfry, Hero of the Southern Isles, should not be forced to sit in a boring hall all day. "No one listens to me, my chair is too tall and my robes itch!" he maintained.

Kahlan sympathized with his complaints, and now that they’d found Nicholas, she saw no reason for further anxiety. Nicholas couldn’t be far from accessing his Confessor powers; in any case a would-be assassin might find the Rahl heir a more dangerous target than he anticipated. Despite her vociferous objections, amongst the toys Darken had lavished on Nicholas for his sixth birthday was a dagger, plain and functional. Nicholas carried it with him nearly all the time.

The thought that her son was hardly helpless filled Kahlan with pride before she could disapprove of this hypothetical use of the power she wished Nicholas had never inherited. Uneasily, she remembered what Darken had said about the D’Haran system changing people.

She had a feeling _she_ was being changed—every day, it was easier to love her son. Every day, she saw Darken reflected in him. Every day, she became more and more Kahlan Rahl, so that sometimes she thought by the time Richard returned, inch by inch, the Mother Confessor would have been replaced by the Queen of D’Hara.

The thought frightened her.

"Be that as it may," Kahlan said, forcing herself to focus on the present, "you have duties to attend to. And you made us worry for your safety."

Nicholas sighed in a way that said he knew he was in trouble, but didn't quite understand why everyone was making such a fuss. "I didn't mean to."

"Never, never do that again," Darken ordered, still pale.

"But Father," Nicholas protested.

"We're going back to the Palace at once," Darken said, silencing his son. He embraced Nicholas, pulled him up before him on his warhorse, and began scolding him all the way back to the Palace. Yet there was more there than simply Lord Rahl’s annoyance with a recalcitrant heir.

Kahlan thought back to Darken’s panic…he had been really afraid, and she didn’t think it was because if Nicholas died the other D’Harans would close in like the sharks they were and have a good try at bringing down the Rahl dynasty.

He cared for Nicholas. Maybe—but this couldn’t be—Darken even loved Nicholas more than Kahlan did.

The thought twisted her heart. She was a terrible mother!

But Darken—Darken Rahl, the man she would have given her life to defeat, her husband, her captor, her enemy—loved his son more than he had ever, she shrewdly guessed, loved anyone.

His eloquence didn’t fail on the ride back—Nicholas couldn’t have gotten an apology in edgewise.

Back at the stables, Darken handed Nicholas down to Becca, who wept with relief. He dismounted, and held out his hands for Kahlan.

He swept her easily from the saddle, and for a moment, Kahlan felt completely helpless in his grasp. She was annoyed to find she liked it.

Flurries of activity swirled around them as grooms took the horses’ reins and Mord’Sith returned from their own fruitless searches, but Kahlan was oblivious to all of it.

Darken still hadn’t let go of her. His hands rested on her waist, and he was looking down at her as though he wanted to borrow her tranquility. Kahlan told herself he couldn’t know of the war she waged daily with herself.

Nicholas’s voice interrupted their abstraction. "Father, where’s Ethan?" he demanded. "You did already find him and send him home, didn't you? He was gathering more troops for the battle."

Kahlan and Darken exchanged horrified looks; how could they have forgotten Nicholas’s playmate? When he returned with more pine cones, he'd find himself alone in the forest.

"Ethan’s my friend," Nicholas informed them firmly. "I’m not just going to leave him out there alone. He's not a Rahl or a Confessor like me. It's dangerous out there for a young boy."

And he strode toward the stable door; his arrogant walk was a near perfect approximation of his father’s.

But Darken caught him around the shoulders before he could escape, finally letting go of Kahlan, and caught the eye of one of the Mord’Sith. She nodded, immediately understanding her mission.

"I can’t believe you forgot Ethan," Nicholas commented in disgust. "Grown-ups." He said it like a curse word.

Kahlan met Darken’s eyes over their son’s head, and helplessly started to laugh.

* * *


End file.
